Abstract

Sumatran rhino (SR), Dicerorhinus sumatrensis,
represents one the oldest surviving mammal genera. Due
to its role in traditional Chinese medicines, the horn of
SR has been sought for well over a millennium and for
many years the price of SR horn by weight rivalled that
of gold. Extensive hunting lead to a precipitous decline
in distribution and numbers of SR, particularly during
the first decades of the twentieth century (van Strien,
1975) and it seems little short of a miracle that the species
is not already extinct. By the mid twentieth century,
the species was depleted from its former range and in
danger of extinction in Malaya and Borneo (Hubback,
1939; Metcalf, 1961; Medway, 1977; Rookmaaker,
1977), and elsewhere on mainland Asia (Harper, 1945).
Flynn and Abdullah (1984) suggested 52-75 SR roamed
Peninsular Malaysia in the early 1980s, including 20-
25 individuals in the Endau-Rompin area, while Davies
and Payne (1982) estimated 15-30 SRs in Sabah. By
1981, the only clear evidence of periodic breeding in
wild SR in Malaysia was in Endau-Rompin and the
Tabin area of eastern Sabah. At that time, the species
was disappearing rapidly from the 20 or more locations
where it had been present just a few decades earlier
(Payne, 1990). Zainal Zahari (1995) found evidence
of only five SRs, all adults, in Endau-Rompin by 1995,
showing that published estimates of SR numbers were
notoriously unreliable, and that actual numbers had
declined by half over the preceding decade. The 1995–
1998 Global Environment Facility-UNDP Sumatran
Rhinoceros Conservation Strategy project saw SR
numbers declining still further, but inflated numbers
kept appearing in public domain, largely due to some
proponents’ disbelief that two decades of effort had
failed. Zainal Zahari et al. (2001) plotted the disastrous
decline of large mammals in Peninsular Malaysia from
1975-99.